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We have experienced the activities of thugs and touts in many quarters, either in our markets, villages, cities and motor parks where they ply their trade and exhibit nauseating behaviour the most.
Thugs are violent and aggressive persons and are usually used by politicians to violently achieve political ends. In some cases, many thugs have graduated into bandits, terrorists, cultists armed robbers.
Today the country is faced with thugs that have metamorphosed into high-profile criminals and terrorists troubling the peace of several parts of Nigeria. This is Nigeria where the unusual and illegality are brazenly brandished and life goes on as normal. This is why some of these thugs most times become “refined” or “repentant” and then later find their ways into public offices.
Some of them are presently in the National Assembly. During heated parliamentary debates and whenever there is a disagreement over a motion, you see them throw chairs, shout and engage in fisticuffs.Interestingly, Some thugs began their thuggery career from secondary school and got fully grounded in it as tertiary institution undergraduates. It is in tertiary institutions that they upgrade their inelegant “skill” by getting involved in cultism. However, this piece is about thugs on the streets who are also referred to as street urchins. The fear is that many of them will be handy tools as political thugs for unscrupulous politicians intent at rigging next year’s elections. Already, recruitment of these thugs are ongoing in many states of the federation.Bulk of the money thugs are paid after executing their nefarious jobs is mostly used for the purchase and consumption of hard drugs. The effects of hard drugs enable thugs to kill, maim and destroy at will.Except government swings into action and nib their bloody enterprise in the bud, there is no doubt that political thugs will have their hands full as we approach another election year.There will be indeed more jobs for them as we proceed into the next elections. Truth be told, some of these thugs are the youths that the government and communities had refused to provide education for. Thankfully, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA are dismantling what fuels their negative energy: Drugs! Recently, the agency intercepted a large consignment of Canadian Loud, a high-potency strain of cannabis, weighing 4,173.5 kilogrammes, with a street value of ₦10,433,750,000, at the Tincan Island Port in Lagos. NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi disclosed that the container housing the illicit drug was conveyed by rail and arrived at the Lagos port on Saturday, May 9th.
When there is a job for the boys (thugs), there must be food (drugs) for them. The suppliers of these dangerous drugs always target political seasons and seasons of insecurity. I recall when I was invited to the war zone in Borno state by General Tukur Buratai who was then the Chief of Army Staff (COAS).I passed the night at the palace of the Emir of Baga in Baga local government, Borno state.The palace was plundered and devastated by Boko Haram terrorist who had occupied it before the arrival of the Nigerian troops. All the ceilings were removed including the furniture, so I was made to sleep on bare floor with an improvised mattress.The Boko Haram terrorists who had occupied the palace littered it with Indian hemp and other dangerous drugs. My experience there gave me a good impression of the demeanor of terrorists: They smoke cannabis and take other dangerous drugs.
Also, my experiences with armed robbers bore the same pattern. When I was opportuned to interview numerous notorious armed robbers, many of them confessed to me that they cannot operate without taking drugs (you can find more details in my book “Dark Clouds: Confessions of Notorious Armed Robbers in Nigeria”).
In Nigeria today, hard drugs are increasingly being used by many youths, this has to be stopped.
Next year’s general election, security experts believe, provides a recruitment opportunity for unemployed youths and thugs. This is why there is the need for state police. With the establishment of state police, the activities of thugs would be curtailed. Apart from the health and social hazards of thuggery, many youths have lost their lives executing dirty jobs for politicians as political thugs.
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Added to the menace of thuggery is terrorism. On April 14th, 2014 a gang of Boko Haram terrorists, stormed Borno State targeting Chibok community. The terrorist stormed Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok and abducted 276 students. That was the first of such criminality in the annals of Nigerian. Sequel to the incident, the Inspector-General of Police at the time, Mohammed Dikko Abuabakar came up with a novel idea that every school in the country would be protected by armed police personnel. Nigerians applauded and commended the idea, which is that police stations are mandated to provide protection to the school nearest to them.
No sooner had M.D. Abubakar retired from the police than the lofty idea of school protection was jestitioned. Unfortunately, the terrorists and bandits, had regrouped with new agenda, fully aware that the idea of school protection has been dropped by the security agencies. They reprogramed and started abducting students from schools for ransom.
As I write this column, many Nigerian school children are in the forest, in the hands of bandits.Aided by hard drugs which they consume with reckless abandon, terrorists behave like animals. Like animals, they have no shame. They rape girls they kidnap and shamelessly carry out sodomy on the boys in addition to demand for ransom.
Only recently, about 42 school children were abducted during a raid by suspected Islamist militants in the Askira-Uba local government area of Borno State, about 150 kilometers from Maiduguri. Also in Oyo State, it was reported that Fulani bandits attacked three schools in the Ahoro-Esinele community, Oriire Local Government Area. The coordinated invasion resulted in the death of at least two teachers and the abduction of over 40 students, pupils, and staff. One of the staff, Michael Oyedokun, a mathematics teacher was gruesomely beheaded by the terrorists a few days ago.
The question is, shall we continue like this? what future is the country giving to these school children? As I wrote last week, had the country imbibed the use of drone as intelligence gathering tool by the police many years before the terrorist started using it, definitely we wouldn’t have found ourselves in this parlous security situation.
In like manner, had the idea of school protection not jetitioned, surely our schools would have been well protected with our children.This reminds me also, when Sir Mike Mbama Okiro was the Inspector- General of Police, he took some police officers abroad for specialized training in anti-terrorism. They were fully trained and armed across the globe. Unfortunately, immediately IGP Okiro retired, the idea was shoved aside and the special anti-terrorism squad disbanded.
Painfully, the country is today paying dearly for the disbandment of the special anti-terrorism squad. That is a squad that would have nibbed the issue of Boko-Haram terrorism in the bud and Nigeria would have not had any experience of terrorism activities.
